On The Front Lines

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Clinton v. Jones (1997), in which a unanimous Court held that the president is not above the law and may be sued for misconduct committed outside of his official duties, a New York appeals court has rejected President Trump’s request to dismiss or delay a defamation lawsuit brought against him. Clinton v. Jones arose in relation to a sexual harassment lawsuit against then-President Bill Clinton which successfully argued that presidents do not have immunity from federal court lawsuits brought by citizens harmed by the president before he or she takes office. The ruling by the N.Y. Supreme Court’s Appellate Division in Zervos v. Trump found that President Trump is similarly not shielded from a state court lawsuit under a provision of the U.S. Constitution making federal law superior to state law. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute assisted Paula Jones in advancing the arguments in her lawsuit against Bill Clinton, which alleged that Clinton, while serving as Governor of Arkansas, lured Jones—then a state employee—up to a Little Rock hotel room, dropped his pants, and propositioned her for oral sex. The lawsuit eventually ended with Clinton paying $850,000 to settle the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an effort to require police to render emergency aid to individuals they injure in the course of an arrest. In refusing to hear the case of Stevens-Rucker v. Frenz, in which Ohio police shot a military veteran multiple times and then—despite their first aid training—let him bleed to death, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that police satisfy their constitutional obligations to assist a person they injure in the course of an arrest simply by calling for an ambulance to transport the arrestee to a hospital. Attorneys with The Rutherford Institute had asked the Court to hear the case, arguing that if prisoners have a constitutional right to medical care under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, then police should be held to a comparable standard in their treatment of arrestees who require urgent medical attention.